they may be counted in our own Islands. I do not doubt that I had fully fifteen copies of the 'Silver Cord' thrown at my head in different railway cars on the continent of America. Nor is the taste by any means confined to the literature of England. Longfellow, Curtis, Holmes, Hawthorne, Lowell, Emerson, and Mrs. Stowe, are almost as popular as their English rivals. I do not say whether or no the literature is well chosen, but there it is. It is printed, sold, and read. The disposal of ten thousand copies of a work is no large sale in America of a book published at a dollar; but in England it is a large sale of a book brought out at five shillings.

"I do not remember that I ever examined the rooms of an American without finding books or magazines in them. I do not speak here of the houses of my friends, as, of course, the same remark would apply as strongly in England, but of the houses of persons presumed to earn their bread by the labor of their hands. A porter or a farmer's servant in the States is not proud of reading and writing. It is to him quite a matter of course. The coachmen on their boxes and the boots as they sit in the halls of the hotels have newspapers constantly in their hands. The young women have them also, and the children. The fact comes home to one at every turn, and at every hour, that the people are an educated people. The whole of this question between North and South is as well understood by the servants as by their masters, is discussed as vehemently by the private soldiers as by the officers. The politics of the country and the nature of its constitution are familiar to every laborer. The very wording of the Declaration of Independence is in the memory of every lad of sixteen. Boys and girls of a younger age than that know why Slidell and Mason were arrested, and will tell you why they should have been given up, or why they should have been held in durance. The question of the war with England is debated by every native pavior and hodman of New York.

"I know what Englishmen will say in answer to this. They will declare that they do not want their paviors and hodmen to talk politics; that they are as well pleased that

their coachmen and cooks should not always have a newspaper in their hands; that private soldiers will fight as well, and obey better, if they are not trained to discuss the causes which have brought them into the field. An English gentleman will think that his gardener will be a better gardener without than with any excessive political ardor; and the English lady will prefer that her housemaid shall not have a very pronounced opinion of her own as to the capabilities of the cabinet ministers. But I would submit to all Englishmen and Englishwomen who may look at these pages, whether such an opinion or feeling on their part bears much or even at all, upon the subject. I am not saying that the man who is driven in the coach is better off because his coachman reads the paper, but that the coachman himself who reads the paper is better off than the coachman who does not and cannot. I think that we are too apt, in considering the ways and habits of any people, to judge of them by the effect of those ways and habits on us, rather than by their effects on the owners of them. When we express a dislike to the shoeboy reading his newspaper, I fear we do so because we fear that the shoeboy is coming near our own heels. I know there is among us a strong feeling that the lower classes are better without politics, as there is also that they are better without crinoline and artificial flowers; but, if politics and crinoline and artificial flowers are good at all, they are good for all who can honestly come by them and honestly use them. The political coachman is perhaps less valuable to his master as a coachman than he would be without his politics, but he with his politics is more valuable to himself. For myself, I do not like the Americans of the lower orders. I am not comfortable among them. They tread on my corns and offend me. They make my daily life unpleasant. But I do respect them. I acknowledge their intelligence and personal dignity. I know that they are men and women worthy to be so called. I see that they are living as human beings in possession of reasoning faculties; and I perceive that they owe this to the progress that education has made among them."

RULES FOR YOUNG TEACHERS.-1. Begin to teach any science, with the elements, the foundations, the sources of the science, and remain there till they are well understood.

2. In descriptions, show, first, if possible, the thing itself; next, its best illustrations by pictures, drawings, or apparatus; last, descriptive or defining words.

3. Let nothing be learned by mere rote; have every term and principle understood when committed to memory.

4. Let technical names follow the idea. When the idea is comprehended, give its name, and, if possible, its etymological pertinency.

5. A rule should be the summing up, in the briefest and happiest terms, of the results of a prior investigation, the better to keep the principle in memory or to state it to others when called for. Let it be stated after the leading facts that underlie it are collected and understood.

6. Go with your pupils always, in pursuit of any result to which you would lead them. Begin on the earth and lead them upwards. Don't take too long steps, don't leap, but let them see each step following the other in regular succession. Remember, especially, the little ones, and take them by the hand, if necessary.

7. Never assume perfect knowledge. Let your pupils know you are still a learner a little ahead of them. When you do not know, say so, assuring them you will try to find out and tell them, if it be a matter of importance. But let not ignorance of things you ought to know often appear.

8. First, draw out of your pupils all you can by well put questions. Let your communications, illustrations and rules follow.

9. Be familiar, as near your pupils as possible, inclining toward them, looking at them in the eye, and reading every emotion.

10. Be earnest, as though the thing you are now teaching is the most important in the world; impressive, as though determined to leave a mark that can not be obliterated.

11. Demand the strictest attention, and always stop when you find any member of a class listless or trifling.

12. Be patient with the slow and sure; they will be your best pupils in the end; and never try the patience of your class by keeping them until they are wearied out.

[New-Hampshire Journal of Education.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOOL GIRLS.-Anthony Trol lope, in his new book on America, (a work of which we may have something to say hereafter,) thus speaks of our school girls "I do not know any contrast that would be more surprising to an Englishman, up to that moment ignorant of the matter, than that which he would find by visiting, first of all, a free school in London, and then a free school in New York. The female pupil at a free school in London is, as a rule, either a ragged pauper or a charity girl; if not degraded, at least stigmatized by the badges and dress of the charity. We Englishmen know well the type of each, and have a fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is imparted to them. We see the result afterwards when the same girls become our servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The female pupil at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a charity girl. She is dressed with the utmost decency. She is perfectly cleanly. In speaking to her you cannot in any degree guess whether her father has a dollar a day or three thousand dollars a year. Nor will you be enabled to guess by the manner in which her associates treat her. As regards her own manner to you, it is always the same as though her father were, in all respects, your equal."

A BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATION.-It is said of the Icelanders, that they scrupulously observe the usage of reading the sacred Scriptures every morning, the whole family joining in the singing and prayers. When the Icelander awakes, he salutes no person until he has saluted God. He usually hastens to the door, adores there the Author of Nature and Providence, then steps back into the dwelling, saying to his family, "God grant you a good day!" What a beautiful illustration is this of the Christian obligation on the part of households to recognize and worship God!

How MIST IS GENERATED.-The production of mist is the subject of a note by the veteran Dr. John Davy, (brother of Sir Humphrey,) in the "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal." The cause usually assigned for mist is the access of cold air, and its admixture with warmer air, saturated, or nearly saturated, with moisture, (such as that resting on the surface of large bodies of water,) and strikingly exemplified in our autumnal and winter fogs, when the water, owing to the heat absorbed during summer, is of a higher temperature than the inflowing air. Dr. Davy, however, refers to another cause, not so much noticed, viz:—a mild, moist air, coming in contact with a colder air, equally humid, resting on cold: surfaces, whether of land or water, about the end of winter or beginning of spring. He describes mists which he considers to have been thus formed in the lake district of Cumberland. To a similar cause, also, he refers the phenomenon termed sweating, which is the precipitation of moisture on walls and flagged floors excluded from the influence of fire. He also attributes to a warm south wind, succeeding a very cold north wind, the deposition of a large quantity of moisture in the gallery of a nobleman in Devonshire, and quotes the saying in Homer, " The south wind wraps the mountain top in mist."

SIZES OF NAILS.-In the August number of the Ladies' Repository I saw the inquiry, "Why are nails designated by the terms sixpenny, eightpenny, etc?" As I am not aware that the question has ever been answered, I thought I would send you what I believe to be a true solution of the mystery. I am a native of Sheffield, England, where immense quantities of nails are manufactured. When a boy they used to be sold in small quantities by the hundred; and the terms fourpenny, sixpenny, etc., referred to such nails as were sold at fourpence, sixpence, etc., per hundred nails. The length of the nails of that day, that were so designated, was exactly the same with nails that are now known by those designations.

[Correspondence of Repository.